Nickel oxide modified C3N5 photocatalyst for enhanced hydrogen evolution performance

Recently, a new carbon nitride (C3N5) photocatalyst has attracted much attention due to its excellent light harvesting and unique 2D structure. However, high recombination rates of electron-hole pairs of bulk C3N5 serious affect the photocatalytic performance. Herein, nickel oxide (NiO) modified C3N5 p-n junctions photocatalyst was synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method. Results indicated that the 9-Ni/C3N5 nanosheet photocatalyst showed excellent hydrogen production efficiency under visible light. The hydrogen production rate reached 357 μmol/(g·h), which was 107-fold higher than that of pristine C3N5. The high catalytic performace was attributed to the 9-Ni/C3N5 p-n junctions which could efficiently promote photogenerated electron-hole pair separation and thus promote the hydrogen evolution reaction.